All right, having done this game before, I believe I can give sound
instructions on what works well and what is easiest to maintain.
The first thing to note is that you don't have to pay for a "live"
connection to the net. UUCP should be adequate if all you're interested in
doing is receiving electronic mail. If, on the other hand, you are
intterested in offering other kinds of services, then you may want to pay
for additional connection options. But, assuming that you indeed only want
mail, do the following.
1. Negotiate with a sight that is connected directly to the InterNET
for a uucp mail feed. Depending on your connections, they may or may not
charge for this service.
2. Once you have arranged a connection, then begin to arrange for
domain name service. (You have to have someone be willing to advertise
that they know how to get mail to you over the NET). Usually, the place
where you get your uucp feed will be willing to act as a primary name
server, but you need at least one backup. I know some people who would
probably be willing to do it. (This service is usually offered free
because there really is not too much work for the service provider to do.)
3. Once you have arranged these things, then you need to apply to the
NIC for a domain name. (nfb.org) comes immediately to mind as a suitable
name. This process, conducted via electronic mail, is free and takes about
two to three weeks. (tops).
4. When you have these things done, and when you have your domain
name all set up, you are ready to start moving mail.
5. For actual equipment, again, it depends, but in any case, a fast
386/486 box with at least 4 MB of memory aught to see you through any
configuration. If all you want to do is print mail, then run MS-DOS with
uupc as the mail transport agent. Software can be easily cobbled together
to do the necessary printing and soforth under the control of command.com.
If, later, you wish to run more sophisticated software, the same machine
will run Unix, the operating system of choice if you want to do
sophisticated mail stuff.
-Brian
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2012 - 01:30:03 PST